Located on a former parking lot in San Diego, Celadon at 9th & Broadway is a 17-story high rise which brings the community 250 affordable rental apartments and embraces a multigenerational population with services and ground-floor retail. Of Celadon’s 250 units, 88 are targeted as supportive housing including 25 units reserved for youth aging out of foster care and adults under the Mental Health Services Act (MHSA) program– populations which have been diagnosed with a serious mental illness and are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless– and 63 apartments serving frail seniors under the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE). Celadon’s goal is to provide secure, livable, affordable housing linked to client centered, voluntary, wraparound services that promote residential stability and self-sufficiency.
The common areas include a ground floor community room and terrace, two resident terraces, a laundry room and garden on the fifth floor, and a terrace on the fifteenth floor with green roof and community room featuring expansive views of San Diego toward the bay. The site is within walking distance of several resident-serving amenities including a supermarket, pharmacy, park, public library and a major transit hub with bus and trolley service throughout San Diego County.
The building aesthetic is derived from its urban and environmental setting with a four-story base that aligns with the historic fabric and scale of Broadway and creates a plinth to support a slender tower above. Angled bays on the west side are tilted to protect from the setting sun and to direct interior views to the San Diego Bay and the ocean beyond. The concrete structural grid is expressed with infill panels of glass, corrugated metal siding and cement plaster with the terra cotta color of the metal panels chosen for its warmth and appropriateness in the San Diego light and landscape.
Celadon is the first development in state of California to combine 4% and 9% tax credits vertically in a single building; determining floor splits, parking splits and best allocation of funding resources. The 9% phase (floors 1-7) consists of 129 units. This portion of the development has 88 units of supportive housing in the living units and studios with the remaining 40 units targeted at 30% – 60% AMI levels. The 4% phase (floors 8-17) consists of 121 units targeted to 40%, 50% and 60% AMI levels. The project includes two and half levels of underground parking and over 5,400 square feet of retail and 4,000 square feet of office space. It is a model of sustainable design incorporating features such as eco-roof garden with sustainable drought-tolerant planting, a south façade of solar photovoltaic panels, and a solar hot water system above the roof, all contributing to the development’s LEED Gold certification and being 25% more efficient than the California State Energy Code (Title 24). The 143-foot-tall solar photovoltaic system, built as a vertical façade on the south side of the building, generates power for the building’s common areas and is the tallest electric solar system in the US.
A pivotal project for the healthy growth of downtown San Diego, Celadon satisfies the goals of a cohesive urban community by offering housing to seniors, the adult workforce, and at-risk youth transitioning from a homeless childhood to adulthood.
